MCB District 1: Barnes, Chirikos, Miller, Nowak

Five candidates are vying for four seats in McHenry County Board District 1, which represents the far southeastern tip of McHenry County.

Republican Yvonne Barnes is a board incumbent who previously served as trustee in the village of Cary. She owns her own technical consulting business. She does not support using a taxpayer-funded lobbyist against the interests of taxpayers, and does not support an increase in McHenry County’s tax levy.

Barnes, like many County Board candidates, said she does not support the current referendum to change the county’s government to an executive form. However, Barnes said she fully supports asking voters whether they’d prefer that the board chairman be popularly elected as opposed to chosen by fellow board members.

Democrat Nick Chirikos is a building products distributor from Algonquin Township. Chirikos is concerned about government growing beyond taxpayers’ ability to fund it, particularly in the form of property taxes. Property taxes are a concern that he and other County Board candidates correctly identify as the No. 1 issue facing McHenry County residents.

Republican Anna May Miller is an incumbent from the Cary area who pledges to find ways to cut costs rather than continue to capture the inflationary tax levy increase that the law allows the county to collect. Miller also would like to see some more common-sense approaches from county government concerning dealing with businesses.

Robert Nowak is a Republican from Cary and was previously a longtime Cary village director of building, planning and zoning. As an incumbent, he also has voted against raising McHenry County’s tax levy.

Republican Robert Bless, a lawyer and police officer with the Cook County Sheriff’s Department, from Fox River Grove also is running in County Board District 1.